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Posts by mafketis  

Joined: 31 Mar 2008 / Male ♂
Warnings: 1 - O
Last Post: 29 Nov 2024
Threads: Total: 38 / In This Archive: 19
Posts: Total: 11031 / In This Archive: 4201
From: tez nie
Speaks Polish?: tak
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mafketis   
10 Jan 2017
News / American GIs troops finally in Poland and, thank God, there's more to come [480]

Because the Balkans have earned a reputation as an instable place full of belligerent peoples whose borders overlap each other and who constantly want to fight each other for dominance.

It wouldn't be a problem except that Balkan conflicts have a habit of expanding and costing millions of non-Balkan lives.
mafketis   
10 Jan 2017
News / American GIs troops finally in Poland and, thank God, there's more to come [480]

Poland has had some really bad, traumatic experiences with Russia way back

28 years and counting, not so much "way back"

ussians of today are not the ones from then

No they just support invading a neighboring country whose borders they had agreed to honor 20 years earlier.... That sounds like the same old Russians to me....
mafketis   
5 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

"Europe must accept Diversity or face War"

I think a lot of Europeans are going to choose..... war.... against Timmermans and Merkels and Hollandes and Junckers.
mafketis   
5 Jan 2017
News / Polish Wigilia on UNESCO's world heritage list? [30]

you still don't know that both 25 and 26 December are holidays here and 24 December is not a holiday

I'm not talking about work schedules and "official" holidays.

In a cultural sense Dec 24 is THE holiday and all the culturally important rituals happen then. The 25 and 26 are free days from work and don't have any particular rituals attached to them.
mafketis   
4 Jan 2017
News / Polish Wigilia on UNESCO's world heritage list? [30]

The one near where I live in Warsaw was certainly open when I went past it at ten o'clock in the evening on Xmas Eve

So... you didn't have anyone to celebrate wigilia with or they kicked you out early..... sad, so so sad....

And the pubs in Warsaw Old Town were packed on Christmas day evening

December 25 is hardly a holiday in Poland (in that there are almost no rituals connected with it). no big surprise.
mafketis   
4 Jan 2017
News / Polish Wigilia on UNESCO's world heritage list? [30]

Did you check out the link the Gastronomic Meal of the French?

"a customary social practice for celebrating important moments in the lives of individuals and groups, such as births, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, achievements and reunions. It is a festive meal bringing people together for an occasion to enjoy the art of good eating and drinking. "

or

"The gastronomic meal should respect a fixed structure, commencing with an apéritif (drinks before the meal) and ending with liqueurs, containing in between at least four successive courses, namely a starter, fish and/or meat with vegetables, cheese and dessert. Individuals called gastronomes who possess deep knowledge of the tradition and preserve its memory watch over the living practice of the rites,"

If that could be listed then so can/should Polish wigilia.
mafketis   
4 Jan 2017
News / Polish Wigilia on UNESCO's world heritage list? [30]

Once again, you will find this not unique to Poland :

The particular dishes (which are pretty stable over time and very different from what people would be eating in France) and the ritual of opłatek help distinguish it.

There's no single thing that is particularly unique to Poland but the whole overall structure is unique.

Also Christmas Eve is far more important than Christmas Day in Poland (certainly not the case in most catholic countries).
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
News / Polish Wigilia on UNESCO's world heritage list? [30]

Xmas eve IS a 'normal day' in the UK, A working day anyway

In the US both the 24th and 26th are normal working days (no boxing day for us, we're made of sterner stuff!)

But considering some of the other things granted UNESCO status I think it's completely appropriate for Polish Wigilia to be listed.
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

For the millions of Europeans who have no other nation to fall back upon or financial means to emigrate, multiculturalism is almost an insult

almost? and the EU leadership has made it a point of honor to stress how much they dislike that type of European, this might have something to do with the current problems - the quickest way for the EU to regain support is to act like they like European people - but that options seems off the table
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

But remember that their birth rate is very high and it is demography that ultimately shapes the world

One of the big problems in the middle east is that population has exploded in the last 50 or so years and many countries have populations that are too large given the limited carrying capacity of the land.

The biggest problem is Egypt which has terrible education and about four or five times many people than it can support.
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
Life / Polish Doctors refuse to take European Health Insurance Card [8]

Just holidaying

Find out how much a visit would cost, you'll probably be surprised at how cheap it would be. If you know any local people who could translate for you you could probably find it even cheaper.
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

followers of cult leaders which recruit their followers amongst the disenfranchised and lost souls

rewrite "disenfranchesed and lost souls" as "violence prone losers" and I'll agree.

I'm a big believer in the idea that adversity doesn't shape character, it reveals it. The Christmas market trucker was a violent loser long before he set foot in Europe and began wasting opportunity after opportunity. A clever sociopath masquerading as a holy man managed to convince him he could indulge in his desires to kill people and feel righteous about doing it.

That said, modern Islam is kind of.... lost. It's stuck in literalism which keeps the whole Muslim world stuck in backwardness and tradition.

Remember: Spain translates more book in a single year than the entire Arab world has for a thousand years (and domestic book production in the Arab world is pretty miserable as well). The Arab world is the current sick man of the world.
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
Life / Polish Doctors refuse to take European Health Insurance Card [8]

Well thats a game changer for allot of people coming to Poland then.

The presentation was about the whole EU, apparently it doesn't work very well anywhere but so few people actually try to use it that the problem remains mostly unknown.

How are you in Poland? private? work? study?

Also private medical care is generally pretty reasonably priced (though finding doctors knowing other languages might be a challenge).
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
Life / Polish Doctors refuse to take European Health Insurance Card [8]

Just a warning for you all out there, you have ZERO medical in Poland, they will tell you to go private or just refuse to see you

What do you mean "refuse to see you"? You need to be on the rolls of a particular 'family doctor' and that's who you first go to when you're sick. You might call around a few different doctors to see if they will enroll you. Once you're enrolled you see them for free and they're supposed to give you referrals for more specialized care.

Otherwise you go private.

How well do you speak Polish? Most family doctors are not that eager to sign up people who will be difficult to communicate with.....

I'll add. I was at a conference last year where the European Health Card system was the subject of one of the papers. The result was that it's best to not have to ever use it.....
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

Islam has been hijacked and Mohamed has been radicalized to suit the purpose of the ideologists issuing their propaganda. There is no empirical evidence that religion and ideology are primary motivators for violent extremism

I actually agree with that. Violent jihadists are usually young men who've failed to make anything of themselves (usually through their own choices) and who become angry. Islam is just an excuse for them to hurt people which is what they really want to do.

Islam, like other religions, doesn't withstand much in the way of rational scrutiny. Muslims today tend to perceive scrutiny as an attack and humiliation which must be answered in force. This is a real different cultural value that canno coexist in the same place with freedom of expression as understood in the West. I have no desire to change muslim beliefs (in situ) but I really see no value in the religion spreading to europe, especially as the carrier of a hostile underclass.
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
News / Polish Wigilia on UNESCO's world heritage list? [30]

Wigilia is hardly a unique Polish feature.

It sort of is if you take the particular traditions in their particular form into consideration. Many other catholic countries have a christmas eve dinner but protestants mostly don't bother.

Whether it qualifies as a UNESCO thing I'm not sure, but if the "Gastronomic meal of the French" qualifies then I don't see why Polish wigilia wouldn't.

unesco.org/culture/ich/en/RL/gastronomic-meal-of-the-french-00437

Whether Christmas Eve practices form other cultures would qualify is a separate issue.
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

most of the foreigners killed in Reina were Arabs

IINM the suspect in the shooting was Arab - fundamentalists always turn first and mostly violently agains their own.

That would make a lot of sense and just shows how much of a scam immigration to Europe has become.

Part of the modern anti-racism religion is that all western countries need large amounts of immigration (don't ask why, it's an article of faith). Most Eruopean countries aren't that attractive to the rootless cosmopolitans that are considered top tier immigrants (since they require immigrants to learn local low prestige languages which rootless cosmopolitans don't want to do).

Middle Easterners are mc-immigrants, they don't pay for themselves (quite the opposite they seem to be a deadweight burden on every country they end up in) but countries like Sweden and Germany can still congratualte themselves on how tolerant and anti-racist they are and how attractive they are as immigrant destinations.

Tha'ts not gonna work in Poland where anti-racism has only a very small following. This has its downsides like random attacks on non-westerners, on the other hand Poland is very unlikely to ever attract a welfare dependent muslim underclass. So that's nice.
mafketis   
3 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

then jobs at it should have been given to Polish locals

In a number of western european countries (esp the UK) fast food jobs are common front for chain immigration (as is the halal meat industry).

Lots of local Polish people work in kebab shops so it's not like there's a huge shortage to justify the problems of work permits, my guess is that the "employees" paid the owner kickbacks for a work visa to europe and after they paid him off they would move on to France or Germany.
mafketis   
2 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

"Stockholm Syndrome" where the victim actually feels sorry for his or her attacker

Much of western europe seems to have lost the most basic of survival instincts happy to endure enless humiliations for the privilege of pretending there's no problem. Fortunately that's not the case with Poland (or other countries lucky enough to survive communism).
mafketis   
2 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

What i was trying to say though is that from the point of view of the attackers

Why are you so interested in the point of view of the attackers (ie killers)?

My own feeling is that there are no greater lessons to be learned here. An aspiring thug got into it with people from a very violent culture. The results say more about dumb, violent young men than anything else. I'm not happy the guy got killed, I don't care that the violent young men in the restaurant have effectively ruined their lives.

On the other hand (there's always another hand), muslims have gotten a bad reputation (through the actions of muslims themselves) and so crimes committed by them will attract more scrutiny and/or arouse more emotions.
mafketis   
2 Jan 2017
Language / I was born in Poland and I cannot pronounce 'CZ' [35]

Americans are much less likely to use "oughtn't" at all, with or without "to"

oughta is definitely in my (southern) variety of US english (as I metnioned before), I think the most natural negative form is probably "ought no to" but pronounced "ought notta" (oughta and notta rhyme in my pronunciation).

Can we now get back to the CZ sound as per title
mafketis   
2 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

Would the ensuing riots have occurred had that business been a Polish run one? Probably not.

There has been unrest before in cases when young people have been killed by the police, so.... maybe?

So far there doesn't appear to be much about it in mainstream coverage

It's all over the mainstream media, tvn24, onet, wyborcza, etc. what you mean is the _foreign_ media.
mafketis   
2 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

Was only going on what mafketis posted

I purposely only published a very abbreviated version since the idiotic English only policy makes posting Polish language sources problematic.

And if people look it up on their own they'll bring different aspects out.

AFAIK only the Tunisian has been charged though other north africans from the establishment are being held.

The comments about the theft and fireworks were only found in the comments of the onet.pl story.
mafketis   
2 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

Reading this I cannot see any racial agrevating circumstances,

Look up the story on Polish media and then look at the comments....

"kupując kebaba osiedlasz Araba..."

(buying a kebab you're settling an Arab)
mafketis   
2 Jan 2017
News / Ethnic tensions erupt in Ełk, Poland [180]

A 21 year old Pole, Daniel, was killed in Ełk in front of a kebab restaurant. A citizen of Tunisia has been arrested and charged with murder. There are unconfirmed reports that Daniel tried stealing drinks from the restaurant and that after he was forced to return them came back and threw a firecracker inside which led to the deadly confrontation on the street.

Some people wanted to leave candles in front of the restaurant but there were also more... aggressive protestors who began throwing stones and broke the windows of the establishment.

28 people have been detained by the police and the minister for internal affairs has stated that the murderer(s) of Daniel and those who destroyed private property will be punished.
mafketis   
1 Jan 2017
Language / I was born in Poland and I cannot pronounce 'CZ' [35]

And "oughtn't", like "mustn't" is much rarer in American English. Quite honestly, I can't recall ever having used or heard "oughtn't" used in the States in my life

I think (no data to support, just an impression) that "ought" is more common in the South than other parts of the US, for me "oughtn't" is a little folksy / old-fashioned sounding but not as jarring and wrong-sounding as "mustn't" (which does sound wrong in US English, like 'shan't')

I have the idea (again no data to back it up) that for USans that use 'ought' it carries a stronger hint of "but I probably won't" than should does.

"I really should go to the doctor's" (I don't want to, but I probably will)

"I really oughta go to the doctor." (but I probably won't unless forced).

(don't ask about the 's - my intuition was to put it in with should and leave it off with oughta but I don't know why)